The High Court is expected to rule next month on whether a judicial review will take place into a local council’s decision to boycott Israeli products from West Bank settlements.

Leicester City Council’s policy was challenged earlier this month by the Jewish Human Rights Watch group.

Group director Jonathan Neumann accused the council of “taking steps down an antisemitic path”, a claim which the authority has rejected.

Mr Neumann and JHRW issued legal proceedings in an attempts to have the policy quashed. High Court judges are expected to rule on the case in September.

Councillors said the refusal to import products from settlements was not part of a campaign against the city’s Jews, as JHRW had claimed, nor a full boycott of Israel.

A council spokesman said: “The motion has never been a boycott of Israel by Leicester. The motion relates specifically to the council’s procurement policy and produce originating from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”

Councillors voted for the boycott in November last year.